
Or was doing what he thought Citadel and other hedge funds would want him to do. Or that he was following orders from his big customer, Citadel Securities (No evidence of that, it seems). He may be right, as he told CNN, CNBC and Elon Musk's Clubhouse, that his firm didn't shut off trading in AMC and GameStop and others because Robinhood was facing a liquidity crisis. LOSER: Vlad Tenev! Talk about being exposed. Stop talking your book, as they say on Wall Street. But I just wish they would stop trying to shape the narrative, via the press, that the guy they bailed out with a few billion dollars handled everything so well after all. The VCs and other assorted backers will get theirs when CEO Vlad Tenev, and Robinhood, eventually go public. It's just a way of attacking wealthy people and I think it's inappropriate." I'd wager he's not keen on President Joe Biden's new COVID relief bill. He went on CNBC and raged about the Reddit crowd: "The reason the market's doing what it's doing is people are sitting at home, getting their checks from the government and this fair share is a bull s**t concept. Then there's the old billionaire yelling from his lawn: Leon Cooperman. Cohen may be too rich to care, but in the short term he squandered some goodwill he built up after buying the struggling New York Mets baseball franchise. Cohen, for one thing, got in a ridiculous war of words on Twitter with day traders, including Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, also known as "Davey Day Trader." Cohen eventually fled Twitter after, he said, his family was harassed. He's the king of Point72 Asset Management, which helped bail out Melvin Capital after it got hammered betting against GameStop. I'm always amazed how thin-skinned the rich and powerful can be. LOSERS: Some of these hedge fund guys, who always seem to play the evil bad guys in these dust-ups. Said one of the firm's owners to The Wall Street Journal: "When it started its march, we thought something is percolating here." The hedge reportedly made almost $700 million from GameStop the old-fashioned way: they researched, met management -and actually started to buy shares of the company last September until it accounted for 5 percent of GameStop's stock. Met's owner, Steve Cohen, got right in the middle of the Robinhood rumpus. Not a great look for a great public servant, which Yellen is. According to Politico, she has been paid $7.2 million from big companies, including $810,000 for assorted talks and webinars from Citadel LLC, which is owned by the same guy, hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who owns Citadel Securities-reportedly Robinhood's biggest customer. The whole fiasco has put the spotlight again on her outside speaking fees.

On the plus side for Gill: can a book and a Netfix deal be far behind? WallStreetBets founder, Jamie Rogozinski has apparently sold his life story. Maybe he should invest the old fashioned way: get a job with a Wall Street firm, pump his positions on CNBC, and all will be OK. Downside: He is now, according to reports, getting a close look by regulators. "I support these retail investors, their ability to make a statement," he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.


The 34-year-old trader, AKA "DeepF-ingValue" and YouTube's "Roaring Kitty," has been credited with launching the the GameStop buying frenzy and teaching hedge funders a lesson or two on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum. But then again, a good bit above its 52-week low of $2.57. Meanwhile, as I write this the GameStop is around $64 a share. In any case, here are a few folks who came out ahead in this whole thing-and others who were scorched by the war between the Reddit crowd and the professionals. The CEO of Robinhood, for instance, will be grilled about his firm's controversial trading restrictions on GameStop, AMC, Tootsie and other day trader favorites. There are hearings in the House of Representatives coming up on February 18-and I would guess some action on the Senate side at some point. Ignore columnists who tell you the day trader crusade is a blip. GameStop Winners, Losers and Winner/Losers: The story still has legs. Will Robinhood disrupter Vlad Tenev be disrupted by Congress? Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch
